


Yawn-B-Gone

by AcceleratedStall



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Energy drinks and other controlled substances, Gameplay Mechanics?, Gen, Not crack but kind of crack-adjacent, Slice of Life, being idiots together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29393157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcceleratedStall/pseuds/AcceleratedStall
Summary: Junpei and Kotone contemplate an apparently potent energy drink sold at the school store.
Relationships: Arisato Minako & Iori Junpei
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Yawn-B-Gone

They meet on the steps outside the front door. “You got the stuff?” Kotone asks, eyes falling to the plastic bag in Junpei’s hand.

“You know it!” he answers with a grin. “C’mon, let’s get inside, too friggin’ hot out here.”

Junpei pulls the door open with his free hand and they step into the dorm lounge. “Wasn’t easy, though,” he continues. “There was only one left in stock. Had to make a deal with Kenji for the other one.”

“Yeah?” Kotone pulls up a chair at the long table by the kitchen; Junpei takes the spot across from her.

“I gotta go play that dumb taiko drum game with him at the mall later,” Junpei sighs with exaggerated remorse.

“You don’t like that one?”

“It’s just hitting stuff! There’s nothing to it!”

Kotone pauses and tilts her head. “Isn’t ‘just hitting stuff’ your entire contribution when we go to Tartarus?”

“I mean, yeah,” Junpei concedes. “But that’s the whole problem! I don’t want to spend my free time on it, I do enough already!”

Kotone laughs.

“Actually, on that subject,” Junpei continues. “Hitting me in the head with the shaft of your naginata while you’re spinning it? Not cool.”

“Look, I _said_ I was sorry,” Kotone answers defensively. “Anyway, aren’t we getting a little off task here?”

“Right.”

Junpei produces the plastic bag and places it on the center of the table between them, then retrieves two cans from within. “Ta-da!” He hands one to Kotone, and keeps the other. The labels on each one colorfully proclaim “Yawn-B-Gone” in oversized, stacked letters.

Kotone rubs a little bit of condensation off the side of her can, turning it over in her hands. Two fellow tennis club members had testified to her personally last week that this concoction “completely cured tiredness.” Extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence, but anything that would make it easier to get homework done the night after they squared off against a Tartarus floor guardian had to be worth considering, right?

“Water - yes. Sugar - yes. Caffeine - yes,” Junpei reads off the ingredients list on his can. “Citric acid, more sugar… Kotone, how do you pronounce this one?“

Kotone, though, has noticed something else. “Wow, it says here that pregnant women and infants shouldn’t drink it.”

“That’s how you know it’s the good stuff!” Junpei grins and starts to give his can a shake.

“Wait, don’t! It’s carbonated!” Kotone catches his arm at the last moment.

“Whoa, good catch there. Alright, we open them on three. One, two…”

They pop open the two aluminum cans, both held at arm’s length just in case, but fortunately no explosion of questionable energy drink is forthcoming.

“Cheers,” Kotone offers, tapping her Yawn-B-Gone lightly against Junpei’s. She takes a gulp, but before she swallows, she feels an itch in her nose-

Oh. Oh no.

_“AH-CHOO!”_ The sensation is brief but unpleasant. Her sneeze sends a fine mist of Yawn-B-Gone across the table, and Junpei into hysterics.

“Ahahahaha! Wow! Oh man, you shoulda seen it! It was like _pfft-_ “ he mimes the outward spray of the beverage with his hands.

“O-kay, okay,” Kotone stammers. “Now we know not to get it up your nose.”

That just makes Junpei laugh harder.

“I’m just going to-“ she starts, but he’s not even listening. Leaving the thought unfinished, she rises from her chair to wash off the table with soap and water - this stuff will definitely get sticky when it dries up.

Kotone is about halfway done when Junpei calms down enough to take a sip of Yawn-B-Gone himself. “Well?” she asks expectantly.

“It has a strong nose, and a heady…” Junpei begins airily, hesitates, and then stops. “Ugh, I don’t know.”

“Don’t know?”

“Couldn’t you tell? I was trying to do a wine critic bit. Would’ve been hilarious, but I couldn’t get the voice right.” He takes another sip.

Kotone laughs anyway as she finishes drying off the table.

“For real though, it’s not what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?” Kotone asks as she sits back down.

“I guess I thought it would taste more like coffee, or something.”

“Huh.” Kotone takes her second sip, much less eventful than the first, and the carbonation tingles at the back of her throat.

Junpei seems to be awaiting her verdict, so she muses aloud, “How’d they make something with this much sugar in it taste so sour? It’s like biting into a lemon.”

“You’ve bitten into a lemon?”

“Long story,” Kotone answers. It isn’t and she hasn’t, but making Junpei wonder is part of the fun. “Anyway, have you experienced any miraculous bursts of energy yet?”

Junpei leaps from his chair, assumes a patently silly karate pose, and exclaims _“Hi-yaaaah!”_ Then he abruptly goes slack. “No.”

Now it’s Kotone’s turn to laugh spasmodically. “What was that even supposed to _be?_ ”

Junpei just shrugs. “I’d kinda expect longer than two minutes for the full effect to set in, though.”

“Fair enough.” Kotone takes another sip. They both go quiet for a moment; she watches dust motes float through a shaft of July sunshine by the front door.

“How about now?”

“Come on, man!”

“Um… what are you doing?” Both Junpei and Kotone turn to look at the new voice coming from the bottom of the stairs.

“Oh hey. Ken-kun!” Kotone offers brightly, beckoning him over to the table as she takes another swig of Yawn-B-Gone.

“Well you see,” Junpei starts, “the two of us were sampling a new brand of energy drink slash chemical paint stripper.” Kotone glares at him, but also puts a hand over her mouth just in case she actually starts laughing.

Ken doesn’t immediately respond, eyes fixed on the both of them; the stare of the dorm’s newest resident is inscrutable but intense. He seems to take a moment to prepare himself before asking, “Can I- can I try some?”

Kotone and Junpei look at each other, then Kotone glances back down at the label on her Yawn-B-Gone can. “I get the feeling that you shouldn’t give this stuff to kids.”

“I drink coffee,” Ken states in response.

“He says he drinks coffee,” Junpei says to Kotone under the brim of his hat, in a voice that’s low but far from inaudible. Ken’s expression visibly sours at being talked over.

“I guess it’s alright, then,” Kotone says. She takes both her and Junpei’s cans, and places them deliberately next to each other at the edge of the table. “So do you want mine,” she indicates the one on the left, “or Junpei’s?” gesturing to the one on the right.

The ire on Ken’s face subsides, but gives way to consternation. Kotone can see his gaze flick back and forth, from the one Yawn-B-Gone to the other, then finally settle back down to the floor. He frowns. “Um, never mind…”

Before he can leave, Kotone gets up from her chair. “We’ve still got some chocolate milk in the fridge. I could get you some of that instead. Here, sit with us.” She pulls up an adjacent chair.

“Okay.” Ken’s voice is tentative, but also a little relieved.

“Good decision, Amada,” Junpei adds, pulling his hat clearer of his face and smiling.

Only that night, lying in her bed with a pounding headache and completely unable to sleep, does Kotone understand just how good a decision that really was.

**Author's Note:**

> You know that "Yawn-B-Gone" item you can use to clear the "Tired" status? Yeah. I don't remember if the game actually specifies what it is - I guess it could be drops or caffeine pills or something - but an energy drink was the first thing I thought of, and it was the most fun to write, so here we are. I don't feel terribly original with this, since I've used the FeMC-Junpei-Ken triad before in another story, but I've been pretty short on ideas lately so I figured it would be worthwhile just to get _something_ written and out there. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
